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fter getting married in the mid-‘80s, Kim Deal mo
ved with her new husband from her hometown of Dayton, Ohio to Boston, Massachusetts. Kim and her twin sister, Kelley, had experience in writing, playing, and recording music, but she soon found that the expectations of musicians in Massachusetts were totally different. “Me and Kelley played here, and I had an eight-track TASCAM, reel-to-reel, one-inch, here in Dayton, so I had my little studio here, ” Kim says of her background when she spoke with Totally Dublin. “So, I had my little studio and was recording here, but it was only until I went to Boston in, like, ’85 or ’84 or something – it was a big university town, college town, and all these bars that people were hanging out in, like, T.T. the Bear’s, and ‘The Rat’ (it’s called The Rathskeller, but we all called it ‘The Rat’), and Chet’s Last Call, and Jack’s, and all of these bars, you weren’t supposed to play cover songs. They expected you to be a The illustrious Pixies/ Breeders bassist/vocalist hits Vicar St on June 16th showcasing her wonderful solo album. WORDS Aaron Kavanagh PHOTOS Steve Gullick band that played your own music. “That was completely new to me. Nobody did that in Dayton, Ohio; you had sets that you played through the evening. Me and Kelley would play sets at little bars. We would play original songs, but just a few. People in Dayton would think that you were very cheeky if you started playing your original material. I thought it was weird, too, that, in Boston, you would play one set, you know? You played your fucking songs and then you left. You got drunk and embarrassed yourself, or whatever. ” THE REAL DEAL While living in Boston, Kim responded to an advert in a local newspaper seeking musicians inspired by Hüsker Dü and Peter, Paul and Mary. This advert would birth Pixies, who would swiftly become local college radio legends. In their initial short lifespan, Pixies would get signed, release several acclaimed records, tour the world, and influence acts across the globe to this very day. “[After their success] Pixies, they moved out of Boston, ” Kim recalls. “They didn’t really tell me they were moving! [Laughs] I was recording [their third album] Bossanova in Los Angeles. We were actually recording outside of Boston. We were recording in LA ...because they moved to LA! I was like, ‘What are we doing in LA?’ I knew Charles [Thompson IV, a.k.a. Black Francis, their frontman] had moved out there with his girlfriend, but then it’s like, ‘Oh, Joey [Santiago, their guitarist], you’re not in a temporary apartment?’ ‘No, me and Linda, we moved out here. ’ ‘You have an apartment out here? Really?’ [Laughs] “So, after everybody left Boston, I got a divorce. The divorce came through in ’89. The band left Boston in about that same period of time. So, I just took my stuff in a U-Haul and went home to Dayton, and I’ve been here ever since, working in my basement. It’s been nice.” Through a record advance for Bossanova, Kim was able to afford a down payment on a suburban home in Dayton. She partly moved back out of a discord with urban living. “I 15